Forum Post: You Can't Support Free Speech and Oppose Lobbying
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 11, 2011, 4:48 p.m. EST by PlasmaStorm
(242)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Lobbying members of Congress is a protected right in the U.S. Constitution. Not only is it protected, it's necessary, more now even than when the Constitution was first written.
Take graphics chips. NVidia's lobbyist knows way more about the ins and outs of graphics chips than Representative so and so from Minnesota.
Or take Verizon network coverage. Verizon's lobbyist knows way more about networking and way certain bandwidths are needed and why a certain tax provision might hurt the telecom industry in 2014.
You filed a technology patent about a new invention. You start a company. You hire a lobbyist. You and your lobbyist know way more about the invention than the politicians on capital hill.
The list goes on and on. Lobbyists are substantially useful and fundamentally NECESSARY for a republic like ours. Democrats have LIED to you. The media has LIED to you. We need lobbyists.
Lobbyists are one thing, their money is another
Exactly. I support lobbying in the sense of speaking to representatives or even hiring others to speak to representatives on one's behalf. But I strongly oppose lobbying in the sense of taking representatives out to dinner, for a game of golf, on private jets, on hunting trips, etc. I also strongly oppose lobbying in the absence of campaign finance reform, since, at present, lobbyists' speech isn't just speech -- it comes with the promise of campaign donations made or withheld.
So, while it's true that my support of free speech means that I also support lobbying in some sense, it does not conflict with my opposition to lobbying in the corrupt sense that offends so many Americans.
so why are we spending $100 million per year on the Congressional Research Service, staffed with 900 employees includes lawyers, economists, reference librarians, and social, natural, and physical scientists?
The Library of Congress is charged with providing unbiased research (but of course all research is biased to some degree). Lobbyists are paid to provide biased research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Research_Service
Definitely one of the best replies on the thread. I've read good things about the Congressional Research Service. I would reason that nothing beats personal motivation.
Perhaps Congress shouldn't be making laws about things they don't understand. Perhaps if government were much smaller, and we just ensured that everyone (including businesses) followed simple laws like "no stealing, cheating, misrepresenting, causing harm to others..." we wouldn't need lobbyists.
Sounds great, but some CEO's are psychopaths: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/12PSYCHO.html (I.E. they don't give a shit about us). Without some kind of regulation they will RAPE CONSUMERS with no remorse.
I'm not suggesting there be no regulation, just that it be much simpler, and not written by lobbyists. I think we're on the same page, bro.
I think this is what needs to happen, but it probably won't be as simple as that one paragraph. :) Government WILL have to be involved with enforcing these things, and there WILL be cases where the government has to create new regulations because there is too much grey area on what is or isn't "stealing" or "cheating" or "misrepresenting" or "causing harm" etc. For example, is a corporation putting a known carcinogen into their food causing harm? Should it be legal?
I think this is wrong, but the sympathy is in the right area. Unfortunately laws are inordinately complex, but that is for a good reason. Open ended laws, that are vague, generally fail to give proper understanding to every day individuals about what the ramifications of the law really is. For example: A sign that says no vehicles on the grass. Does that mean no bikes? what about scooters? what about motorized scooters? This is why laws end up being complex. We lose the simplicity that many people desire, but gain a better understanding of what is and isn't allowed by the law.
I agree. We also have to take into consideration, however, that a system with laws so complex the people do not understand them, or do not have time to read them to keep themselves updated on the democratic process, leads to a government with complete control. The people are intended to be one of the checks and balances, if not the biggest one, to prevent government corruption. If we are just trusting them and saying "It's all too complicated, you solve it." then we've given up our rights and our power to a dictator behind the facade of a free government.
Up to a point. For example, do you understand the tax code? Are you sure you're not violating it? When the laws become so complex that a citizen isn't sure what the law is, he apt to break it, landing himself in jail. Governments have, in the past, done this intentionally to enable them to round up whomever they didn't like.
Businesses, particularly small ones, also find it very difficult to comply with mountains of complex regulations. In many cases, this is because big business (via lobbyists) has written them with the specific intent of making it difficult for anyone to compete with them and hiding loopholes in the complexity.
I would rather deal with interpreting the word 'vehicle' than have to read 200 pages of legalese to determine if I could park my scooter on the grass.
lobbying is not free speech. lobbying is patent corruption of the system. Its fine for corporations to use the same methods of contacting and interacting with the government as the rest of us do. Conflating lobbying as a free speech issue is an evil dirty smoke and mirrors con scam, it has not one ounce of truth and not one bit of merit. Its NOT neccessary, there is no reason at all for corporations to have the ear of government with the masses walled out. Free speech does not mean free speech only for the rich. it means free speech for all of us. Your so called free speech is not free speech, it is the silencing of 99 percent of the population, so that one percent of the population can lie, steal, and cheat.
Lobbyists are NOT useful, and are not systemically viable. We do not need lobbyists, you are the liar. and spin doctor, and con artist.
http://www.oligarchyusa.com/
http://www.istockanalyst.com/finance/story/5390832/some-fascinating-stats-about-our-corporate-oligarchy
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/category/21st-century-challenges/ethicsandeconomics/
According to a 2008 article by David Rothkopf, the world’s 1,100 richest people have almost twice the assets of the poorest 2.5 billion (Rothkopf, 2008). Aside from the obvious problem – that this global elite has their hands in everything from politics to financial institutions – …
http://theprogressiveplaybook.com/2011/09/occupywallstreet-an-american-tahrir/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ght22PnCXy0
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/wisconsin-is-ground-zero_b_825321.html
http://last-lost-empire.com/blog/?tag=global-corporate-oligarchy
To the extent that we, the people, are removed from control over our lands, marketplaces, central banks, and media we are no longer empowered. In practice, those few who do control the land, central bank, media and "free market" are the real rulers of our corrupt and declining "democracy."
Due to propaganda from a corporate-owned and edited media we are kept from knowing, much less debating, the nature of our system. Due to a central bank owned by bankers, media owned by a few global concerns, and trade regime controlled by global corporations (i.e., one designed to remove the people from control over their markets and environments) the vast majority have become little more than latter-day serfs and neo-slaves upon a corporate latifundia.
To restore a semblance of effective democracy and true freedom Americans, and people around the world, need to re-educate themselves as to the true nature of their political and economic systems. Toward this end, OligarchyUSA.com is dedicated to providing old and new information, books, links, reform ideas and debates not easily found or accessed today in establishment media.
OligarchyUSA.com is but one more site and sign of the times as ground-up counter-revolutions arise around the world... all in response to a forced and freedomless globalization courtesy of a ruling global elite perfecting their top-down plutocracy and revolutions of the rich against the poor. In short, democracy is no longer effective today. For this reason, it is toward a restoration of truly effective and representative democracies, and natural freedom, that this site is dedicated.
The poster of this article is referring to.....petitioning the government ( First Amendment). but I agree...there is a difference between lobbying and petitioning.
However Citizens United addressed this very issue and even went so far as to overturn McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform.
This is a very dire subject and at the core of our corrupt system/
First off, I obviously don't appreciate you calling me a liar, spin doctor, and a con artist. Yes you did, second paragraph down.
To address the substance of your claim, if there is any substance.
This is one area where Barack Obama is more guilty than even most politicians. He repeatedly denounces lobbyists. "I'm good, they're bad, just because." This is demagoguery, and someone who has spent as much of his life in political activism as Obama should appreciate moreso than most the right for citizens to have a say in government.
You claim that lobbyists silence members of the public. No, they don't. It's a fact. You do realize the Capitol is an open building, right?
You claim "there is no reason at all for corporations to have the ear of government." Bizarre. (Have you considered that reducing the public's access to Congress is the opposite of "Occupy Wall Street's" forthclaimed mission?)
Lastly, let me recognize that there are and have been abuses. That is why we have laws. These Wall Street protesters talk about being "the 99%." 99% of lobbyists follow the law.
Interestingly, tonight Pres Obama is in Orlando at a fund raiser at John Morgan's HOUSE with may other 1% ers. Multi millionaire Morgan somehow has gotten then President's ear. It is the money. $33,000 per plan. If the liberal media would publish it, you could read about it in Wednesday's news, but not a word will be said that Obama talks big for little people and wine's and dine's with the 1%ers and nobody notices the Irony. I vote for Change, I voted for Obama, I still support him, but this is hard to swallow and is exactly the kind of BS that OWS needs to bring to the forefront! This type of billion dollar campaigns is WHAT NEEDS TO STOP!
I for one don't have any problem with Obama meeting with "a bunch of rich people" in someone's house. Much more telling is how Obama will give a speech to the media where he badmouths lobbyists. The next day, we see a flowchart; Obama's wife is a VP of The University of Chicago Hospitals, which spends ~$150,000 a year on lobbying fees.
if you don't appreciate me calling it like it is, don't do it.
Lobbying is the problem. Lobbying is corporate oligarchy. Lobbying is not free speech, its how the corporate oligarchy removes from the rest of us meaningful rpresentation- robbing all the rest of us of free speech. This is a fact. The capitol being an open building means nothing. When only special interests can pay to address their "reps" thats not representation, thats a pyramid scheme.
There is no reason at all for corporations to have the ear of government. Whats bizzare is you think there is. I think its a fine idea to let PEOPLE who happen to OWN a corporation have the SAME access as EVERYONE ELSE.
The abuse by definition IS lobbying. Period. The system is abuse, because it puts communication between the people and the government out , end representation, and creates oligarchy.
It is a LIE to say that lobbying is free speech. It is a LIE to say that it has any systemic usefulness. It is a LIE to say that lobbying is not the problem.
Stop being a liar, stop being a spin doctor, stop being a con artist. Yes. I . Did.
As one of many demonstrations of why your line of reasoning doesn't work, OWS has been organized by Adbusters. This is a fact. A nonprofit in Canada, in CANADA. You're supporting a lobbying effort by a Canadian non-profit and you're attacking lobbying by corporations owned by United States citizens?
Is it? Because people were arrested near there yesterday. Doesnt sound like an open building to me.
corporations should not have the legal status of "personhood", for good chunk of american history they havent
ergo......they dont have the same "free speech" rights in regards to donations that we as invididuals do
: )
You and many OWS supporters have this bizarre claim, on the other hand, to want "freedom" but here you are, making arguments against a free society when the issue actually comes up. When you have stood up for freedom? Of course they have free speech rights, they're employees of a company that is owned by United States citizens. Who said they lose their rights when they turn a profit?
It is the corporation as being persons that is the problem, and it is entirely different from individual employees having legal rights as persons. Humans are clearly persons; the theory that corporations are persons is just bizarre.
It is done to stop the owner(s) of a corporation from being liable for the debts of the corporation. I shouldn't even need to explain why this protection exists; this is high school-level economics. It's a necessary protection.
No, limited liability is what keeps stockholders from being liable.
The personhood stuff is based on the 14th amendment, which was written to give ex-slaves the vote.
You ARE joking, right?
That's true to a large extent. What is not protected by the constitution is the propensity of lobbyists to bribe politicians through campaign contributions. So if a lobbyist donates to a politician under any conditions privately or as representative of his interest he should be given a stiff prison sentence say 25 to life with no parole. Same for the politician who accepts the bribe. But yeah lobbyists should be able to lobby.
Free speech is based on one man one vote. However, in the current system, we have one man many votes depending on how deep the voters pocket is.
Damn right we need lobbyists - OUR LOBBYISTS! Form a virtual congress of the Internet (crowd source it), reclaim some of YOUR airwaves and create your own TV network where you can openly debate things like the virtues of preemptive wars, take a vote, and then hire lobbyists (or send your own) to lobby OUR Congress in Washington on behalf of the American people. Monitor their votes and use YOUR VOTE (not bags of money like corporate lobbyists) to send those who "just don't seem to get it" back to wherever they came from - and KEEP POLITICAL PARTIES OUT OF IT!
Lobbyists are cool when they aren't buying votes for their causes (which the richer ones do)
Let me tell you something: If AT&T are allowed to buy T-mobile, Lobbyist corruption will be proven.
The concept of lobbiests is sound, but the fact that they have more power to influence legislature that affects their businesses than we have to influence legislature that affects our daily lives is wrong.
we need lobbyists, we just don't need them buying talk time from our elected officials!
"you can't support free speech and oppose lobbing' is the argument made in Citizens United.....and has struck down McCain-Feingold....campaign finance reform...
You are 'referring' to the First Amendment...with regards to petitioning the government...
It does not say......to bribe the government with campaing contributions and gifts!!!!
demand for action with signatures: a written request signed by many people demanding a specific action from an authority or government appeal or request to higher authority: an appeal or request to a higher authority or being something requested: something requested or appealed for
It says PETITIONING the government...NOT bribing!
Lobbying sidesteps public opinion and places those with the facilities to afford it in a better position to influence politics than those who do not. I'm in a middle class family, with the main household income being around $100,000. Do I get to lobby in Washington? ...Nope. I just get to vote and that's about it. Lobbying is unfair because it is a method of influencing politics that is not available to everyone. Everyone should have an equal voice in politics.
So someone in your household is taking in $100k and they most likely have an employer. That employer is better off with a lobbyist in Washington DC.
My example for today is Accounting. Let's say you have an accountant in your family. The SEC is currently considering mandating IFRS rules over GAAP. GAAP has been used by American companies forever. The employer considers IFRS to be useless and ignorant of reality. Why are extraordinary items omitted on the income statement? Why no fair value reporting? We must be living in the 18th century again.
The employer can lobby to have the SEC jettison IFRS.
Perhaps, I would just prefer if lobbying was a bit more open-book and that meetings between politicians and lobbyists take place in open forums like tr289 said.
Agreed. Lobbyists will be instrumental in fixing our problems, within the United States. Creating a better USA, growing our population, creating high paying careers, will not require trampling the many vast and important issues, promoted by hard working lobbyists, much less amending our Constitution. Achieving these things will require lobbyists and their thankless, but tremendous efforts.
Lobbyists ARE useful. They ensure that the corporations maintain their power over Washington lawmakers.
You can limit lobbyists and special interest groups to only be allowed access to our politicians in open public forums. No one wants to silence Corporations and special interest groups, merely take away the ability to throw piles of money at our politicians and make back room deals.
How about no MONEY changes hands ?
It's perfectly REASONABLE and APPROPRIATE for our Representatives to reach out for input from representatives of industry, certain segments of society, experts in their respective fields, etc. In fact, I EXPECT them to. Why, however, must MONEY change hands?
Federally funded campaigns. ZERO money handed over to representatives REGARDLESS of how "noble" the cause or whether it's a "junket" or a "golf trip" instead of cash. No money from unions OR corporations (see http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?order=A).
We CANNOT run a Democracy when the VOICE of the PEOPLE is drowned out by all this CASH. It needs to STOP.
I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous overreach that puts the OWS movements' prejudices on open display. You make accusations on a whim. 99% of investors, lobbyists, representatives etc follow the rules. You wouldn't acknowledge that because your self-worth is predicated on the notion that you are a victim of someone else.
LOL ! I'm ACTUALLY a 1%'er as I have net assets far in excess of $1 Million. See my post here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/one-percenter-ready-to-join-if .
I didn't SAY they aren't following the RULES, I think they ARE. The PROBLEM is that the RULES allow them to BUY FAVOR by making political donations.
How can you even ARGUE against this simple and EASILY substantiated FACT?
There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the Constitution that says it's OK for unions, Corporations, or ANYONE else to CORRUPT our politicians with CASH. Furthermore it IN NO WAY limits Freedom of Speech to INSIST they only TALK and not exchange CASH.
I am a CARD CARRYING REPUBLICAN, and even I say we are ALL victims of the CASH flying around Washington. It needs to STOP, and if THIS movement adopts THAT as their primary message, I'm 100% ON-BOARD.
I described your idea as overreach and consider the absurdity of having the following government-sponsored campaign spending:
$500 million to Republican candidate $500 million to Democratic candidate $500 million to Libertarian candidate $500 million to Green candidate $500 million to Constitution Party candidate
Consider that this is absurd, not just because of it would deny free speech, but also because it would place fringe candidates on par with mainstream politicians. People would almost immediately respond by creating new political parties just to get additional funding.
Sure. Funding for ANYONE who can collect supporting signatures from a To-Be-Decided (TBD) number of Citizens registered to vote. What's wrong with THAT besides the SIDE EFFECT of ALSO reducing the POWER of the current "BIG TWO". Who ever SAID we were supposed to be a "TWO PARTY" Democracy anyway? If a LARGE NUMBER of CITIZENS thinks a man/women has something to say that I should hear, I'm WILLING TO LISTEN."
On ANOTHER note, there's ABSOLUTELY no reason campaigns need to COST SO MUCH. The only reason they cost so much NOW is we've turned them into largely a MONEY contest.. the candidate with the MOST CASH has an EDGE. I'm all for fixing THAT absurd approach to Democracy. How about we try another? Fewer TV adds, more published positions and debates, etc.
As with most of the protesters, your thinking is so ingrained in tearing down others that you don't stop to consider even the most obvious consequences of your statements.
You SAY you want to keep money out of politics but you actually just posted that it's okay for the federal government to write a $millions of dollars check to a third party. The only consistency in your arguments is that you dislike the way things are today.
You're playing WORD GAMES, and you know it full well.
This is the PEOPLE'S Money, not the money of SPECIAL INTERESTS.
If I had MY WAY, there wouldn't even BE any MONEY REQUIRED. We'd simply REQUIRE that those organizations using the PUBLIC airwaves DONATE the coverage time as a PUBLIC SERVICE under their current charters. Being a REPUBLICAN, however, DUE PROCESS and PRIVATE PROPERTY concerns cause me to say it's probably FAIR we PAY them.
As an aside, note that by placing a BAN on even INDIVIDUAL contributions, we give a VOICE to those who can't AFFORD to make contributions and are otherwise DISENFRANCHISED.
Finally, I'm NOT a protester. I have benefited GREATLY from the way things are. I DO have to ADMIT however, that the people here have ONE GRAND IDEA that I can support, that I think MOST OF AMERICA can support, and that's GETTING OUR VOICE BACK.
Is taking lobbist money for favors considered free speech?
Though I can reasonably assume that neither have any particular scruples regarding ethics. Your point is...?
If there wasn't money behind it, I wouldn't care about lobbyists.
Lobbying is bribery. That's all there is to it.
Lobbying is you talk to a member or members of Congress about an issue that is important to you that Congress can act on. It can be taxes, budgets, laws, foreign policy, or very often an issue of business before a committee that the member of Congress sits on.
Bribery is offering and/or soliciting money for personal use in exchange for official public acts.
The two are not nearly the same. That's all there is to it.
That's right! Cause lobbyists as they exist today have been around forever! And the Constitution protects the right of corporations to throw money and favors at politicians to influence votes too!
SOO true. lobbying is a very very good thing. the problem is how it works right now. and if you look on the web for lobbyist that are trying to reform the system... well i could only find things like this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/27/campaign-finance-reform_n_982560.html if you are one of those lobbyist, you should reach out.
We don't need lobbyists, we have the internet. Professionals from inside the industry are ALL OVER the internet. There's plenty of sources for advice and simple internet research that can be done. Not to mention plenty of forums that already exist with plenty of people highly willing to share their knowledge.
The internet is the WORLD'S lobbyist.
That's not the way Congress works. They argue in committee for hours, call votes, meet with their chief of staff, have lunch, meet with their scheduler, meet with their party caucus, more votes etc, and leave Washington on Friday morning to get back to their home district. There is no time, no time for members of Congress to do independent research ("oh let's google this issue, then the next vote, then the next vote").
And I know that I'm being simplistic. Of course there are issues that involve a great deal of research. Most votes do not, they can't; Congress would grind to a halt if everything needed its own powerpoint presentation. Keep in mind the sheer volume of legislation and activity that we're talking about here.
It's simple to devote segments of time to researching an issue. A week looking over this, a week looking over another thing. If you REALLY must use a company-insider lobbyist who knows the industry, internet research easily can and very well should supplement their counsel. The lobbyist works, first and foremost, for their company and will advise his lawmaker(s) exclusively in a way that best favors/benefits the company. Also, I'm not necessarily saying the congressperson in question has to do all the research independently; it shouldn't be hard to have staffers do some quick research and compile a simple report or some bullet points.
Yes, our Reps. and Sens. have busy schedules and lack full education on all policy issues; I mean most don't even READ the bills they vote on. However that is not an excuse to let lobbyists spoon-feed them ideas favoring their companies without doing any sort of background research. Furthermore, I would add that your reference to the GPU industry and Rep. whoever from MN seems a bit far-fetched; GPUs are a dynamic new technology and they are a relatively low-impact lobby, plus our lawmakers are mostly old people. The worst offenders, the recession-causers, are lobbies from financial executives who just basically sell them on how awesome derivatives and exotic financial vehicles are (in theory).
you are correct, however, in today's world Lobbyists for banks, Medical industry, food industry (monsanto) corporations, and weapons industry have taken control of people, food, health, war, and genocide at will. Wake up
you are correct, however, in today's world Lobbyists for banks, Medical industry, food industry (monsanto) corporations, and weapons industry have taken control of people, food, health, war, and genocide at will. Wake up
I am amased at how Occupy works. Would like to have your input on the movement to understaqnd it better. I am asking you to answer 10 questions and I am happy to share results if you are interested. Please, take some time for it: Thank you! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q3NF7QB
It's not free speech when the citizen is prevented from speaking and a corporation is entitled to be listened to. Corporations are not citizens. We don't give them a voters registration card and we shouldn't allow them to buy votes either.
Let's say a corporation is a citizen. If so, why should they get more representation before congress than you and I? Why should Nvidia or Verizon be heard while Mr Jones issues are ignored?
The goal of lobbyists is to manipulate and control a market. In a true free market there would be no reason for Nvidia or Verizon to be speaking to congress. They would only need to speak to their customers via products and the customer would vote or reject them through consumption.
You're presuming Mr. Jones is being ignored. That's a hypothetical. Reality is substantially different from this hypothesis. Let's say Mr. Jones was part of "Occupy Wall Street." Is Mr. Jones being ignored? Actually, Obama is out there applauding him... laughing all the way to the ballot box, but that's another subject.
Mr. Jones is being ignored because his elected representatives are bringing up corporate issues instead of the local issues they were elected to defend. Our representatives are supposed to be the peoples lobbyists and limited to certain constitutional matters. Yeah, the city where Verizon is located may wish for their congressman to adress congress. But if Mr. Jones only has a couple hundred Verizon employees in his district of a million, why should his representative hear Verizon first?
Occupy Wall Street has every right to protest within the bounds of the law, as long as they are not given special treatment or access that other protest groups have been denied. They have every right to let their representative know their grievances. But since most of their Marxist demands are unconstitutional I wouldn't want congress debating it as it's not a congressional matter. The protesters would be better off going through the supreme court and hoping for some activist judges to circumvent....
Many in this movement are Obama operatives. Of course Obama is applauding them. Class warfare is his re-election platform. He will use the sheep to get back the pasture and then sell them out to the slaughter.
Dude, please, grow up. This is a non-argument. The money has to be taken out of the electoral process. In other countries in Europe, for example, elections are publicly funded. You need to take the temptation out. If politicians know they are getting money from people, they open their offices to them to hear them. It is bribery, ultimately, but more subtle. So, to repeat, lobbying is okay as long as it is not tied to money for campaigns. Course, getting the money out of campaigns is only one of many reforms, electoral, political, financial, etc. that have to be corrected.
freedom of speech should work both ways. You shouldn't be able to buy additional speech. It should be free.
Lobbyists are not the problem, it's the money being fed to politicians for campaigns that is responsible for our inept democracy. Occupy Wall Street should have a concise message to reclaim American democracy by prohibiting private contributions to public campaigns. Reclaim the public airways and use some of that time to give candidates a chance to speak. That way they won't be beholden to their funders i.e. wall street. Democracy + Capitalism = Oligarchy
Prohibit private contributions? Where do you people get this crap?
I want to live in a democracy where the person with the best IDEAS wins, not where the candidates must be in a race to sell their decision making power so that they can run ads of themselves to win.
Campaign finance is (in the context of lobbying) a different issue but I would encourage you to consider whether a third party that gets fewer than a million votes a year should be on the same par with the Republican Party, which gets 50+ million votes every election, has been in continuity since the 1860s. The answer is of course not, because then everyone would start their own political party and be endowed with millions in public funding.
Yes, the point is that the reason the republican and democratic parties get so many votes is because they spend millions on ads which lead the american public to believe that those are the only people they can vote for. If you took the money out of it and made the candidates earn airtime and reasonable amounts of campaign funding from the public by demonstrating to the public that their platform is something popular, then there would be a more direct relationship between the people and who they have a chance to elect. The current system encourages politicians to raise money from big interests (read, pay them back with lawmaking power), and then use that money to speak empty rhetoric to the public. Do you at least agree that our democracy (framework and system) could be vastly improved?
Lobbyists are necessary, the money they pour into our congress isn't. That's the part that really REEEEAALLY needs to be illegal, because it's allowing those companies, who know ay more about their products, to gain control of our political system.
Lobbying by citizens is protected activity. Lobbying by corporations is not. Corporations are not citizens. They are extensions of state power. See Corporations and the Public Purpose: Restoring the Balance, available at: http://www.corporatepolicy.org/issues/corppurpose.pdf
If the Congress is anticipating that legislation it is contemplating will affect corporate business, it may invite representatives of corporations to testify to the Congress in a public hearing, in full view of the American public.
And then how would a U.S. citizen lobby on behalf of their employer? They would talk to their CEO who would hire a lobbyist to represent the firm. See how this works?
Like you, I would not support banning lobbying by citizens. But I would very much support a law that prohibits corporations from lobbying.
Let's say that corporate lobbying is banned, as it should be. Then it is illegal for a corporation to pay somebody to lobby on its behalf. If a citizen wants to lobby on behalf of his or her employer, the citizen is free to do so. However, the citizen may not be hired and/or paid by a corporation to do so. One problem that we have right now is that Congress is full of paid, full-time lobbyists who are effectively blocking access to representatives by citizens.
A corporation is a publicly-owned enterprise that is owned by United States citizens. Do you understand what a corporation is?
A sole proprietorship is a business owned by one person. A partnership is owned by two persons. The owners are liable for the debts of their business. A corporation protects the owners from personal liability and allows for management continuity in the event that the founder dies or leaves the organization.
You say corporate lobbying should be banned. Have you even the slightest idea of how destructive and backwards this would be in the real world?
A corporation is a legal entity that is an extension of government power. It can be consulted, like any government agency, but it shouldn't be permitted to lobby as if it were a citizen, which it is not. Prohibiting corporate lobbying would not be the slightest bit destructive. Far from it, as it would make representatives more responsive to citizens. How is enhancing democracy "destructive and backwards"?
As I said in my initial post, that corporations would be prohibited from lobbying would not mean that Congress is powerless to get a corporation's input on proposed policy. It just means that input is given at a hearing in broad daylight and at the request of a representative, not out on a golf course somewhere.
Corporations, having been endowed with public power, are subservient to the people, they are not the people's equals. And because they weild public power, it is all the more critical that they act transparently.
You say "a corporation is a legal entity that is an extension of government power." Six persons and myself graduate from (hypothetical) Drexel in six months. We start a business. We create an S corporation because there are just six owners. I'm sorry, this is not an extension of government power.
In 2015, we grow to 300 employees. Still not an extension of government power. In 2018, we go public and we have 1,200 employees. Still not an extension of government power. In 2021, we have a market cap over $300 million. Still not an extension of government power.
And I hate to be this obvious but look: Company "Banana" with 12,400 employees. Versus, this dude Chuck with a sole proprietorship with 7 employees.
You're saying the sole proprietor should be able to lobby but the team with 12,400 employees and their families depending on them should not be able to lobby. This is a discontinuity in your reasoning. Everyone's interests are best protected by ensuring that all United States citizens are able to lobby the Congress, the way it is today.
An S corporation is an extension of government power. And you do not create the corporation. You merely request that it be created. The government creates the S corporation by issuing a charter which bestows the public powers of indefinite existence and limited liability from creditors on its shareholders.
If you do not wish to be restricted in your activities by the public, do not seek public privileges.
I am indeed saying that a sole proprietor should be able to lobby but the team with 12,400 employees and their families depending on them should not be able to lobby. Although, I think it a bit naive of you to believe that employees willingly lobby on behalf of the owners of the companies they work for, especially when their interests are often directly opposed. The difference is that one is a citizen and the other is a public institution.
You say that "[e]veryone's interests are best protected by ensuring that all United States citizens are able to lobby the Congress," and I agree. That is my position exactly. You have a different position. Your position is that everyone's interests are best protected by ensuring that all United States citizens and corporations are able to lobby the Congress. I strongly disagree.
Under my rule, you are free to lobby on behalf of your S corporation in your capacity as citizen. You just can't get paid by the S corporation while you do it.
Then who is speaking up for the corporation? A corporation is owned by United States citizens. United States citizens have a right to free speech and (by the way) a right to association. You don't lose those rights because you work for a pharmaceutical company instead of a single-owner diner.
Not only should corporations be able to lobby, it isn't just a question of "survival" or not suriving. It goes beyond that. They have the right to seek assistance, to increase profits. To be more successful. Any number of things. Maybe the government owns a patent and should release it. Maybe a tax rule could be changed. Maybe a physical bridge should be put up. Maybe the government would have an actual, tangible use for a product sold by this company.
I think the nice thing about this side-discussion is that you're highlighting what I said at the start of the topic. You can't support free speech and be opposed to lobbying.
A corporation's shareholders are US citizens, but not exclusively, nor even necessarily primarily--which raises different, but equally as serious, questions about corporate influence over government.
But let's assume a corporation for which its shares are held entirely by US citizens. I don't understand where you perceive a problem here. US citizens are free to lobby. You ask who is speaking up for the corporation, and the answer is: anybody who wants to in their capacity as a US citizen.
If I say that a corporation cannot do X, that does not restrict the liberties of American citizens in any way whatsoever. A corporation is a separate legal entity from a citizen. Indeed, its existence as a separate entity is the basis for affording its shareholders the privilege of limited liability. You want to have your cake and eat it too, which has been going on in this country for entirely too long. Sole proprietors do not have limited liability. If they kill or seriously maim somebody, they personally are on the hook for the entire amount of damages, regardless of how much assets their company has.
Corporations do not have any rights. They are public institutions. To say that a corporation has rights is to assert a government of inherent authority over the people it governs. Opposition to that principle, and support for the concept of popular sovereignty--that the people are the source of all government's power--animated the American revolution. What you are suggesting--that corporations have rights--is counterrevolutionary.
"[U]nderstanding the fundamentally public nature of corporations is the key to restoring democratic control over them. If we recognize that corporations are public institutions, created under a process in which ultimate authority is vested in the citizens, then it becomes clear that corporations do not intrinsically bear any rights or privileges except those that citizens choose to confer on them."
Corporations and the Public Purpose: Restoring the Balance, available at: http://www.corporatepolicy.org/issues/corppurpose.pdf
I have no problem with a lobby or special interest group communicating their views verbally.
So long as there is no money involved. We need to get the money out of the political system. 1% buys their representation, 99% are left with the scraps.
Lobbying is only protected if you give corporations the same rights as people.
They're not.
http://storyofstuff.org/citizensunited/
That's a big part of the problem with our government right now.
If I'm a person and I'm the owner of a corporation (all corporations have owners) then don't I have the right to hire an employee or a firm to lobby?
Why lobby? The free market will decide if your products are worth. Lobbyist are required to work around systems. Lobbying is just another name for bribing. Once there are special interests you need lobbying to beat them.
What you just wrote is called a curry's paradox. You say why lobby (how are members of Congress supposed to make decisions without the most information?) The free market is based upon having a free interchange of information.
You're a person and you have the right to pay for a lobbyist if you want.
I'm saying your corporation is NOT a person the same way that your car doesn't become a person with human rights just because you drive it.
You have rights. Your corporation doesn't.
This is a lie! You are entitled to bring a petition to redress grievances and to vote for a representative. YOU HAVE NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO BRIBERY! That is our current system, payoffs, bribes, gifts, promises of employment upon leaving offices. Greed and money currently rule this country not free speech. Take action now, come to Wall Street on 10-15 to vote on a plan to mobilize! See:
https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/home/the-steps-to-non-violent-revolution
I don't oppose lobbying. I oppose lobbyists and corporations being allowed to donate money to election campaigns. Nobody's saying that lobbyists can't try to influence an elected official to vote a certain way--go ahead, talk until you're blue in the face. But keep money out of it. Spending money is NOT speech, regardless of what slimy, corrupt shoeshine boys like Antonin Scalia say. GET CORPORATE MONEY OUT OF ELECTIONS.
Actually we can. Corporations and other special interests are not entitled to free speech because they are not people. They are composed of people that do have free speech, but giving this to an entity is absurd as we already have laws that address these entities.
How do you reconcile this with the simple reality that a lobbyist is an employee working for the owners of the company, who are United States citizens?
How does that give the corporation personhood? Are you saying that because the company's owners are United States citizens, the company is therefore a U.S. citizen too? LOL! What about the owners' cars? Are they also citizens? Their cell phones? Staplers? All citizens?
Well, the context is whether a corporation has a constitutional right to petition the government. I'm saying, and I'm probably slightly better at articulating this than when the discussion started, that a corporation is a business entity whose owners are United States citizens. A United States citizen can hire another United States citizen to represent them (the company).
Again, THEY are individuals that do have rights. The corporation, as an entity, does not deserve rights because they can't share in responsibility. If an individual is caught doing business with a terrorist organization or any enemy of the US, they will rightfully go to prison. If an individual literally dumps waste in the river, hurting many, to save money, they will rightfully be arrested. If corporations hire people to do these things, they may be hit with a fine, then, at best, they might replace some of the executive management to avoid bad publicity.
What you're enabling is for a corporations to receive the same rights as individuals, but not sharing in any of the responsibility. The mere question of whether a corporation has personhood (the state of being a person) should have been shot down immediately. There's no argument for it, other than, you want corporations to do better. But they won't and it's abomination of the justice system that needs to be fixed.
Bullshit !!Lobbyists know how to use Corp. $$ to bribe the pols into doing what they want. Its all the Gov't you can buy @ auction. The people being rendered penniless therefore have no voice anymore in the halls of power. The Corp. people are the only people the pols want to speak with and do for. This is what were fighting against. Corps. are not people and money is not speech no matter what you think. Go away, your wasting your time here troll.
This is entirely a straw man argument. Straw man lobbyists, straw man politicians. Who is being rendered penniless? Oh, that's right, the protesters because they are camping out in a park.
What is the purpose of a government? Is its job to serve and protect people? Or is its job to serve and protect both people and corporations?
Corporations and people have vastly different interests in America, and usually these interests are at odds.
The corporate stranglehold upon our government is a direct result of the independent personhood we have given them. Because corporate resources are exponentially greater than any one person's resources, corporate ability to pressure the government is therefore also exponentially greater. Thus, it is inappropriate to give corporations the same rights as human beings -- it squeezes human beings out of the political process, as we all know by now.
Therefore, the whole notion that protection of lobbyists is protection of "free speech" depends entirely on whether that lobbyist represents a corporation or just himself.
One commenter brought up the fact that lobbyists help protect certain markets from government influence. Why is government even involved if the market is not in its charge? Is the government also to be involved in the internal economy of my family? Is the government to be involved in my own personal allotment of resources? Should I let the government know when I take a shit?
Lobbyists are unnecessary if we re-envision the purpose of the government. Complex laws breed people who can't think for themselves. Corporations have large manuals of rules which its employees are expected to follow. Small businesses, on the other hand, usually trust their employee's judgment. Now you tell me what your experience has been: where are employees more intelligent and capable of free thought, in corporate chains or small businesses? If your answer is small businesses, then you have direct evidence that complex laws breed helpless people.
I mean, I would say the same thing that I'd say to the guy with the "99amendment," that corporations are groups of people. If you pose that you dislike the corporation, then what about the CEO? Can the CEO lobby on behalf of his company? Well the CEO generally doesn't have the time (the bigger problem is synchronizing his schedule to allow him to meet with members of Congress, whose schedule is likewise crazy). So the CEO hires a lobbyist for the company. From here, I see a principles problem. Lobbyists have the right to lobby on behalf of the corporation for the same reason that the CEO has the right to lobby. Because of the right to petition the government, which is a right given to all Americans.
Again, LOBBY AWAY. Use your skills of persuasion to convince an elected official to vote the way you want him to. Just keep money out of it. Because as soon as you donate money to an elected official's reelection campaign in an effort to get him to vote the way you want him to, you're BRIBING him--no matter what the "justices" on our completely corrupt Supreme Court have to say about it...
The problem with anyone who acts in the name of a corporation is that what stands behind that action is not moral compulsion, but a monetary salary. Do you know anyone who cares only about money? If so, you probably think that person is a psychopath. Do we want psychopathic influences upon our government?
I know that this is a very broad stroke to paint in, because I know that there are people out there who genuinely believe in the company they work for, but the largest and loudest lobbies are known to belong to ruthless companies.
Let's clear some things up here.
Lobbyist- A group of persons engaged in trying to influence legislators or other public officials in favor of a specific cause: the banking lobby; the labor lobby. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/lobbyist
That's the LITERAL definition, but NOT what most people are talking about when they refer to lobbyists. I don't think you'll find anyone who says the literal definition of lobbying is a problem. People should have an active, as well as electoral voice in their government. Furthermore, Congress needs to rely on experts in specific fields to knowledgeably craft effective legislation. So far so good, but the problem is in the reality of what most people mean when you talk about 'lobbyists.' Having a voice in government is fine except when you do so in a manor which 99% of Americans are completely incapable of doing. A massive banking firm can afford drop millions into the campaign coffers of representatives (notice the plural). When you exist in a two party system, that makes it pretty easy to 'influence' both sides.
What you get out of this is our current situation: legislative and executive branches (both of which appoint the third branch of government) that have become totally dependent on private funds for reelection. When winning re/election is your primary concern. Again, it's easy to see how the corporate bribery known colloquially as 'lobbying' is eroding the voting power of American citizens to nothing.
It's interesting that you would mention the labor lobby. You can have a lobbyist or a lobbying team for a company, and then you can have the (opposing) lobbyists who work for the labor union that's trying to strike. Asides from the anti-capitalist stuff, a lot of "Occupy Wall Street" people fail to recognize that unions represent the worst stereotypes of companies and very rarely do anything productive. It's like an employee who is being paid to stand in the corner and say bad things about everyone else working the assembly line.
You also mention bribery. If anything, I think lobbyists have a bad reputation because of a handful of incidents. There's the Jack Abramoff thing. Really though, Abramoff was involved moreso in a fraud, in mail fraud and electronic fraud. That may not be the worst thing he/they did. When there's a scandal, every news outlet covers it for months and it just reflects badly on lobbying. 99% of lobbyists could do the right thing and they'd still look bad because of a handful of guys they'll never meet. Same thing (unfortunately) with the politicians who listened to them, who really had nothing to do with their activities.
No answer?
Without broadening this debate to the legitimacy of unions (let's stay focused), I'll state my own pseudo agreement with you about unions. They don't represent people, they represent union interests. If anything they are a perfect example of how 'just learn to play the game too' ends like Orwell's Animal Farm, i.e. indistinguishable from who they started out opposing (big business). POINT TO BE ADDRESSED: Union lobbyists do not represent common people's interests and are not an effective advocate for American citizens.
Yes or no: Using lobbyists, corporate interests have greater power than the American public considering they can fund both sides of the two party system?
When I refer to bribery, I was referring to campaign contributions. That is paying a politician to influence the laws he enacts.
You ask "Using lobbyists, corporate interests have greater power than the American public" but legislation is more likely to have an immediate, identifiable impact on a corporation than on a member of the American public. You can't separate a corporation from its employees and act like we're talking about the same issue.
And obviously, most of the legislation in DC has nothing to do with the average company either. But it's more likely to.
Consider how versatile this economy is. We need lobbyists, even more than when the Constitution was written. We have debit cards, we have cell phone bills, we have broadband internet connections, we have heart bypasses, we have vaccines. Yes, we have nonpartisan research services but that's not enough. If someone like the Sierra Club has an important voice, surely it is more important that actual employers - people whose paychecks depend on - be involved. And this is an area where Barack Obama is woefully out of touch, not experienced, and has no vision besides blame other people.
You dodged the question and missed the point of my post before the last one. Let me put it simply:
The literal definition of lobbyist is someone who petitions government. I'm not talking about this.
The colloquial reference is to someone using money to to influence a law maker. I am talking about this. THIS IS BRIBERY.
Quit pretending I didn't mention that explicitly two posts up.
In a two party system, in which politicians depend on massive amounts of money to run for reelection, campaign funds then become the sole motivator. Simple principles of self-interest dictate a corporate entity will not support a candidate who will support their issues. Thus, we as voters have only choices between Corporate Interests A and Corporate Interests B. This isn't representation.
Yes, I can separate the 'employee' from the corporation. The corporations is a business. The employee is a person. For the people, by the people. Not for the profits, by the profits.
Yes, unions are simply the flip-side of the corporate coin. If we got the kind of change we really want in America, both unions and corporations as we know them would quickly become dinosaurs.
More importantly we must utilize OUR RIGHT TO LOBBY congress to get the kinds of changes we deem necessary to fix this mess. I think that the more general outrage against lobbying is based around professionals who tend to have more time with their congressional representatives than the average person. To deal with that you don't have to limit lobbying, you just have to get rid of the reliance on lobbyists.
This can be achieved by changing how campaigns are financed. The less a campaign is financed by the corporations that have lobbyists, the more a representative can focus on the people.
all this information trading
wise advisement to the congress members
can be conducted in the open on a web page
lobbyists have corrupted the system to the point where WE ARE NO LONGER LIVING IN A DEMOCRACY, average citizens have no say whatsoever in the political process, why do you think that the banks were never held accountable for wrecking the economy, why do you think financial regulatory reform was watered down to point where it does not fix anything and will not prevent another crisis. A corporation is nothing like a citizen, its only goal is to make more and more money and it has no regard for the overall public interest. This is why we are out in streets, we want our democracy back!!!! If you think that funneling millions of dollars into campaigns is this same thing as free speech, I dont even no what to say to that. That is some serious cognitive dissonance. And your argument that we need lobbyist because they are experts is just plain absurd. Members of congress are always free to contact any experts they want if they need some information. We have to stop allowing those with the most money to buy up all the influence. Oh sure why dont we just ask bp and exxon what regulations would work best for them, forget about all the people that live on the gulf coast that will suffer the most if something goes wrong, there opinion isnt important.
lobbyists have corrupted the system to the point where WE ARE NO LONGER LIVING IN A DEMOCRACY, average citizens have no say whatsoever in the political process, why do you think that the banks were never held accountable for wrecking the economy, why do you think financial regulatory reform was watered down to point where it does not fix anything and will not prevent another crisis. A corporation is nothing like a citizen, its only goal is to make more and more money and it has no regard for the overall public interest. This is why we are out in streets, we want our democracy back!!!! If you think that funneling millions of dollars into campaigns is this same thing as free speech, I dont even no what to say to that. That is some serious cognitive dissonance. And your argument that we need lobbyist because they are experts is just plain absurd. Members of congress are always free to contact any experts they want if they need some information. We have to stop allowing those with the most money to buy up all the influence. Oh sure why dont we just ask bp and exxon what regulations would work best for them, forget about all the people that live on the gulf coast that will suffer the most if something goes wrong, there opinion isnt important.
When you pose that average citizens have no say in the political process, what are the issues that are important to you? Name some issues that are important to you that are neglected.
Social issues are important to me. Protecting U.S. military dominance is important to me. Reducing the national debt is important to me.
I don't know what issues are important to you. But as with my case, I have a hard time picturing lobbyists of getting in the way of "your" views on the political process. Tell me where I'm wrong.
True, you can't support free speech and oppose lobbying, and although I'm all in favor of taking down today's ineffective and inefficient Top 10% Management Group of Business & Government, there's only one way to do it – by fighting bankers as bankers ourselves. Consequently, I have posted a 1-page Summary of the Strategic Legal Policies, Organizational Operating Structures, and Tactical Investment Procedures necessary to do this at:
http://getsatisfaction.com/americanselect/topics/on_strategic_legal_policy_organizational_operational_structures_tactical_investment_procedures
Join
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/StrategicInternationalSystems/
if you want to support a Presidential Candidate at AmericansElect.org in support of the above bank-focused platform.
Corporations talking to politicians and government agencies to discuss how to grow is fine.
Politicians needing the money from corporations to get elected is not.
http://www.the99amendment.com/
You asked me to look at it so I looked at it. The problem, as succinctly as I can say it, is a principle issue. It's a principle that all Americans have a right to petition the government. In fact, their employer is subject of the utmost importance. Even the Occupy Wall Street protests demonstrate that Americans take the economy and their own employer's situation extremely seriously. Now, if you take away the right of a corporation to represent itself, you are infringing on rights. There exists an overwhelming public interest, a fundamental right to petition government. The freedom from expression? Not so compelling at all. I would argue that even if one corporation is louder or one voice is louder than the others, there is a compelling interest in keeping that voice there because of the fundamental right.
"It's a principle that all Americans have a right to petition the government...Now, if you take away the right of a corporation to represent itself, you are infringing on rights."
For the 19,000th time, NOBODY IS SAYING THAT CORPORATIONS SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT. What we ARE saying is that the "petitioning" should involve actual SPEECH, not the donation of money by the corporation to an elected official's campaign in order to sway his or her vote. And that's the problem with the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United--they declared that monetary donations are speech! I beg to differ, and so do a lot of people who aren't what amounts to black-robe-wearing members of the Mafia....
I'm trying to address both mindsets (for instance, see the post below this one) at once and it gets a bit tangled. The whole topic of donations and campaign finance is a broader topic from what I had in mind when I posted the thread. I think people would be amazed at the intrinsic value that lobbyists offer to any legislative branch. Yes, there are abuses. But look at wikipedia for example. With wikipedia, you allow people with different interests to edit topics. And no one is saying that wikipedia's writers are entirely nonbiased. But look at how much more thorough it is than any other encyclopedia. You couldn't pay a group of staffers to write all of the content of that site and in such great detail. That's because when you allow people to care for their own interest, they take an ownership stake in what's going on. Nobody can more knowledgeable about business than business. And someone brought up the Sierra Club here, great example also.
The fundamental right to petition the government is for persons. A person being a living human being, not a Corporate Personhood. There is and shall be no law preventing individuals from petitioning the government. But the money being brought into the political process by corporations drowns the voice of the individual.
The concerns of a Corporation being able to usurp the rights of the individual people is not new. The Supreme Court establishing Corporations as having the rights of a natural person needs to be addressed:
"In this point of the case the question is distinctly presented whether the people of the United States are to govern through representatives chosen by their unbiased suffrages or whether the money and power of a great corporation are to be secretly exerted to influence their judgment and control their decisions." -- Andrew Jackson
"There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses." -- James Madison
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." -- Thomas Jefferson
PEOPLE lobbying Congress, not corporations. We have to learn the difference between real and artificial entities, again.
Yes!
http://www.the99amendment.com/
Lobbying in its traditional form, that of presenting a case or argument or plea to an elected representative of the people, is invaluable. However influence pedaling and legislative horse trading and campaign financing for leverage is not. It is poisonous. This is why beyond the pedestrian calls to "end lobbying" the underlying message of campaign and lobbying reform resonates with the very diverse group that makes up this movement.
Lobbyists allow working class people to work while their needs are being addressed on Capitol Hill in Washington. Without lobbyists, those people would have to go themselves and miss work
Ha Ha Ha This is a lobbyist lobbying for lobbyists. Any rational person who does not think our system of lobbying in Washington is not out of control has to be making his money as a lobbyist.
another reason to consider an amendment to the constitution that would allow congress and the states to enact laws regulating and limiting certain political speech by corporations,
I agree with this posting people! The word Lobbyist is often used in bad light associated with industry. But really, Lobbyist can be YOUR voice to gov't. It IS part of our Republic. If I support the Sierra Club, or the Natural Resource Def. Council; then I am making my voice be heard along with 100's of thousand of like minded people to improve the environmental condition and regulation. For instance, the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) DID NOT originate from Congress, it was the work of many LOBBYIST with a common goal and years of work and now we have a good law that protect people.
another reason to consider an amendment to the constitution that would allow congress and the states to enact laws regulating and limiting certain political speech by corporations,
How would you respond to the statement, "Americans are better off when corporations are successful?"
Democrats were not complaining about corporations when Bill Clinton was President. Now all they do is bash corporations. This is not a plan to build an economy, any economy. How is this not relevant to politics?
I agree. There is nothing wrong with lobbying and lobbyists. Hell, Obama's government is loaded with former lobbyists and most OWS protesters will vote for Obama again.
The problem is the corrupt and unethical politicians who use their positions of power to demand and accept bribes and campaign cash and jobs for their friends and relatives from lobbyists.
Corporations are not people and do not have the same free speech rights as people.
Suppose that we accept that "corporations are not people" at face value. Ok. Corporations are not people (a fact that may be in dispute under the law). But suppose that Frank is a husband and father of four. Frank works for a company in Montana and the company is involved in an ongoing dispute that affects interstate commerce.
Frank's company has the right to lobby the government. Even if the Congress does not act after the company's lobbying (maybe what they're asking for is just not a good idea), all parties are better off. The company is better off. Frank is better off. The government is better off, and probably much better informed on "the issue" in question.
But who's saying they can't lobby the government??? They can lobby all they want. Just don't donate money to the election campaign of the officials you're trying to "lobby," because then it's bribery. It's really not that complicated. You can't possibly be that far gone that you can't grasp a simple notion like that...
But the problem is that Frank's company sends money, sometimes to both sides of an issue, to make sure Frank's company, and not necessarily even Frank, gets the best possible deal out of legislation. Think of the effect free trade has had on our country. Since all the free trade agreements have gone through, has the lot of the middle class improved? How about the poor? And all that free trade was lobbied for by groups that represent industry. See, the problem is that, so long as the money is flowing, it is not relevant whether something is a good idea or not. Congress will vote it through either way. Let me not let anyone off the hook here because there are other agencies, like the White House which are involved in campaign money and lobbying. In addition, while Monsanto executives may in fact understand agribusiness better than most, I question whether it is a good idea to have a revolving door between lobbying positions and political posts in The Department of Agriculture. That is not the only lobbying entity with an obscene amount of power. The Cattleman's association actually has power to restrict your right to speak badly about beef!
In the end, there may be many people who are better off, but I can tell you that the evidence is that Frank has not been better off for all the lobbying, nor, most likely, are the customers who buy the product because that lobbying can be used for all kinds of things like downplaying a drugs bad side effects or loosening regulations about clean air and water or making sure we dont know what is in the material used for hydrofracking.
You need to have a look at the negative side of corporate lobbying and what it has done, not just to the government but to people. And really, all of this assumes corporations are people because they have the same status in lobbying as "people groups", for instance, NAACP. The difference is that there is usually only so much coming in from the NAACP but often, with corporate lobbyists, the sky is the limit.
I would argue that offshoring, not free trade, is what's hurting the middle class. It's moving American cashflows overseas. The logic isn't terribly hard to follow. I'm always amazed when they put an Economics Ph.D. on television and he doesn't immediately talk about this.
One long-term solution is to keep American corporate tax rates lower than tax rates elsewhere so that companies have a vested interest in retaining their costs here and not somewhere else with sandy beaches.
And on top of that, there are even elements within the Supreme Court who.....while not officially lobbied, are cozy with industry and certain figures within the right wing movement. Can anyone say Clarence Thomas?
You need lobbyists and they need you.
When this country started Jefferson, and Madison etc. wrote their of drafts of legislation. The bills weren't too long and they know what was in them and could actually debate the merits. Nobody is more surprised when a bridge to nowhere shows up in a law than the guy who introduced it. Why? Because he didn't do the research to prepare it, he didn't draft it, hell, he never even read it. Who did those things, his staff? No It was the staff's of one or more lobbyists. Those lobbyists and their staffs used to work in Congress.
I support free speech as long as you are speaking for yourself and identify who you are, this is so if you are irresponsible and slander or provoke panic you can be held responsible, and I support free personal writing and the free press the same way. It think it is a novel idea to require every piece of proposed legislation to be written in the handwriting on the member of Congress who proposes it. The bills would be shorter and the party that is supposed to be responsible for it's content would know what is there.
If lobbyists were fundamentally necessary, you could show me where in the Constitution they are recognized and regulated? It is probably in the part about political parties, right? Not there either? Hmmm?
Speech being someone else talking for you, or many people talking for you or money to pay people for talking for you is getting further and further from responsible free speech. And it is demonstrably not working the way the framers intended and even if it was it is an unanticipated abuse of economic power that deserves to be regulated. Regulated by common law. statute or Constitutional amendment, if necessary. It much be regulated for the consequences of not being is abuses that most of the 99% can see it and some of the 1% as well. Consultants can be hired with any degree of technical savy that is required by the citizens to get laws written properly and for the benefit of the 100% of the citizens of the USA. No Sir, Loobyist s are NOT fundamentally needed for a republic like ours should be. I have Started companies, patented my inventions, and yes, I have had the president of the largest lobbying firm in Washington at the time on a payroll working for me and you sir, are wrong. And the Democrats, and the Republicans and the TEA party have lied, and are lying and will continue to lie, but we don't have to accept it. A corporation can not speak, can not vote, can not go to war or have babies. They can not legally buy Congress, but sadly they do, and you condone it..
The fact that congressmen and representatives vote on bills they never read says a lot about why we are in this mess. As long as they get their riders in the bill they will vote for it. Why bother to read the bill when they plan to stick with the party dogma, do favors for each other, and follow the money trail.
f they weren't raising money they would have time to read them. I think no bill should be considered that isn't written in long hand in the legislators hand.
http://www.the99amendment.com/
Nope your premises are all false. The reason is that the government has no right to regulate the market period. That being the case there is no need to lobby for any legislation concerning business. Free markets, free from government interference are regulated solely by the consumer. There is no other way to put the power in the hands of the people otherwise the balance of power is squarely in favor of the side that has government and it's monopoly on force on it's side.
As a Libertarian I believe in the free markets, but I also believe its too idealistic to assume the market can solve every problem on its own. For example, insurance companies are denying their customers insurance due to pre-existing conditions which are totally bogus. A woman is denied cancer treatment because she had a yeast infection 30 years ago? You've got to be kidding me. Yet, do you know any insurance companies that ARENT doing that? So what choice do consumers have? We can't afford an army of lawyers like they can. That's when you need someone bigger than just the individual consumer to step in, such as the government. Now, how the government should regulate such issues is another very careful matter. I do not believe they should simply go in and punish the insurance company on moral grounds, because morals are indefinable. We have to get them on some legal issue that is not vague and doesn't give the government too much power to abuse. For example, they should be taken to court - by the government FOR the people - on charges of contract fraud and abuse. There's no need for a new law there. It's a win win. The government protects the people, which is their job, and no new regulations have to be made, so no other corporations get hurt who weren't doing anything wrong, and the government doesn't gain any new powers to abuse.
The free market would help in your example because the obstacles that exist stopping competition from arising would be gone. Those things would actually become a thing of the past. Current regulation allows insurance companies to act in this manner because they are protected from competition. If that woman decided to form a cooperative for cancer patients to join to help each other pay for the treatments there would be no hoops for her to jump through to get that done. No doubt enforcement of fraud and theft laws needs to be much much better but when government is in bed due to regulation lobby's and campaign payoffs then they tend to look the other way. End regulation and thus end the need for lobbyists as well as the hurdles that stifle competition.
So in your scenario, an insurance company denies a patient cancer treatment, meaning they will have to pay possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket. That cancer patient and their family, who are struggling emotionally and financially, are suggested to start a cooperative with other cancer patients who are also broke from paying for cancer treatments out of pocket that their insurance providers denied. Where is the money for the cooperative coming from? I don't think cancer patients are very wealthy. And what happens to the insurance company? They maybe lose a little bit of business IF people find out about what they've done? Those things don't add up in my mind. Isn't there a better solution? Can't the government have some kind of role in regulation? If you think about it, the free market is like a game of monopoly. When it first starts out, everyone is playing fairly, but eventually someone wins. Except in this game, you don't put the pieces back into the box, you keep playing, and the person with all the property keeps charging you rent. Now, you can't deny that a person with trillions of dollars can influence the market more than a consumer with $100 of spending cash. So eventually, someone has to compete with the major corporations, on behalf of the people, in order to keep the markets free and fair. Who better to do that than the government? I think where we have to be careful is in how much regulation and what kind, so that the government doesn't become too powerful, because like the corporations, they will also become corrupt.
You completely missed the point. It's not about some fictional anecdote. It's about the system allowing for room for these kinds of things to be there for people. Options, competition in the marketplace.
Did I miss the point or did you just revert to repeating yours instead of answering the questions? The free market is a beautiful thing, but it's not a fix-all. To believe it can fix everything is an extreme view. Extremism leads to failure and denial. There's no room for that kind of thinking in a movement intended to bring people together. Open your mind.
I'm in no way saying that free markets fix everything. But you can call me an extremist when it comes to freedom. That I am. I always will be and if that makes me an outsider so be it.
Well, freedom taken to the extreme is anarchy, so why not take the extra step and just say there shouldn't be any rules at all? If we regulate things like murder and theft, then we are already admitting that there should be some laws -- and that ultimately the free market isn't going to govern itself instinctively. I'm certainly not saying the free markets aren't the solution, but I think it has to be a mix. More freedom than regulations, for sure, but I do believe it's dangerous to be purely for free markets and against all government intervention.
Free markets are regulated by the consumer. We buy what we like and don't buy what we don't like and the businesses that operate in ways we don't like don't stay in business because we stop buying their products and or go into business to compete with them. I am certainly not an anarchist and believe that the only purpose of government is to protect the rights of a free people. That being you have a right to life which means that no one has the right to take your life, you have a right to private property (your body is your private property) so no one can damage or take your property or tell you what you can do with it so long as you do not infringe on someone else's rights with it. Government is supposed to protect those things as well as your right to free association which extends to the market but is not limited there. Free association means that you can marry how you like and befriend who you like or hire who you like to work for you. Now there are bad people who will discriminate but freedom has some ugly parts to it. Usually those ugly parts are minimized through societal pressures and common interests but all in all I think freedom is worth dealing with the small ugly parts because the alternative is what we have now and what we are heading towards if we don't change directions.
Lobbyists are what got us into this quagmire.
PlasmaStorm,I agree and disagree with you on many levels. It's a complicated topic, so I'll try to simplify the best I can.
Lobbyists are aggressive. Expert panels are passive. The congress can and does call upon expert panels to help educate them on issues where they otherwise have no expertise themselves. Such as the examples you gave, which are all good examples. The issue with lobbying is that its a very broad category. What I don't mind is congress asking Google to explain their search engine algorithm before they decide its doing something illegal. To decide on matters you know nothing about seems dangerous, for sure. What I do mind is lobbyists going to congress and saying "Hey, you should do this!" It's the difference between solicited and unsolicited. The people can't afford lobbyists, so if you have one group always talking in your ear and paying for benefits and another group you never really get to hear from directly, who pays for nothing, who are congress more tempted to listen to? Gifts and such should not exist, because they are clearly bribes. Expert panels should exist, but they should be called upon from BOTH SIDES as equally as possible. Meaning, someone should be found to give the opposing view point on EVERY topic, in EVERY case.
Finally, the solution isn't lobbying. The solution is less regulation, in my opinion. If a government isn't regulating every tiny aspect of every industry, then there is no reason to lobby them about the regulations they have. Laws need to exist to protect people, but I also don't think so many laws have to exist that a person can't spit without hitting one. Wow, that was a really red-neck analogy, haha. I'm from Michigan. :)
c0lex - But you are clearly unaware that YOU DO have Lobbyist, you just might not be taking advantage of them. You can have a voice, a BIG voice, if you join an association for your cause. Thing of what the Sierra Club or the Natural Resource Def Council does, the go to congress, unsolicited, and bring matters to the attention of Congress that 100's of thousand of other people are concerned about. I have repeated this, take the American with Disabilities Act. Do you think Congress made that up. No, it was associations that had Lobbyist convincing congress of the need for this and I suspect is was a hard sell. Unless you have time to run up to Washington or even to your local congressional office to speak your mind, join an association, donate, and get your voice heard.
Right, but then we get sucked into the game of 'whoever has the most money and the most lobbyists gets their way' and we're always going to lose that because the wealth is with the upper class. Even if all the lower classes pooled their money together, we wouldn't come close to competing with them. Yeah, the NRA gets gun laws passed, I'll give you that, but there isn't a large enough organization for every single thing I believe in. On top of that, I don't have the money to donate to 50 different organizations every month in order to let my voice be heard. Money is not supposed to equal political power. Money is fine, and it does equal power in other ways, which I accept gladly, but it should not be able to influence politics so strongly. That becomes a monopoly on government, and since there is NO competition for government, it would be a true and dangerous monopoly.
The solution is neither less regulation nor more regulation. The solution is smarter regulation that prioritizes the public good, not the private good of the lobbyist who donates the most money.
This is not scientific rocketry, guys. Lobbyists and regulations both are tools - they are neither inherently good nor inherently bad. If industry used lobbyists to present concerns that were genuinely in the public interest, there wouldn't be a problem. If government used regulation to protect public interest, there wouldn't be a problem.
With the way they are used now, both are often problems.
How would you respond if I said that not all interests worth protecting are necessarily public in nature? Why not use a big giant corporation as an example. Microsoft. China has been hacking into corporations. Microsoft's lobbying team (hypothetical) wants new laws drafted to help protect U.S. business interests. These aren't public interests but they still make perfect sense.
That's not a very good example. There is public good even in business - I think very few in Occupy would carry the banner to the extremes. I will not advocate - and I think I speak for most of Occupy when I say this - utterly ignoring criminal activity just because a corporation is on the receiving end.
The problem is when corporate interest and public interest conflict. In your example, there is (as far as I can see) no conflict of priorities (I'm open to being corrected on that).
But let me give you a better example: copyright law and "fair use." What would Occupy say to a case like that? I don't know - there will be no 99% consensus on the proper solution to this.
But there is a 99% consensus on the process for arbitrating these cases.
That involves an arbitrator - our government - that will judge the specifics of the case while balancing the public and long-term value of business and intellectual property - and yes, there is some, we understand that - with the public long-term value of intellectual access and creative culture.
That's the system we are supposed to have in place. That is not the system that stands, right now. We have arbitrators who balance campaign contributions, not public interest. This is why Net Neutrality legislation has become a controversy instead of a mere formality. On the one hand, you have public intellectuals who tell you, "unfettered, unbiased access to the internet is crucial for maintaining intellectual freedom." On the other hand, you have ISP lobbyists saying, "hurr, load-balancing is hard. Let me write you a check." And these are somehow difficult to choose between for our elected representatives.
We don't have faith in our system. Lobbyists shouldn't have been the problem - their ideal role of presenting the special interests' arguments, to be fairly assessed against the arguments of the public - is fine. Someone needs to do that. But they ruined it for themselves by suborning their purpose and the purpose of Congress by turning their job into brokers for legislative votes. Too bad. Now you've lost the public trust and should - rightfully - be excluded from the legislative process. You've already shown you will not abide by the philosophy of a democratic system. Don't be so surprised that the people who have lost the most refuse to invite you back.
For the rest of us - if we impose the systemic reforms that remove or delegitimize pay-to-play governance and state-sanctioned bribery - we hope to be left with a system that represents us in good faith. There will be decisions that we, individually, disagree with. We will live with that. That's how democracy works, that's how we co-exist with other human beings. It goes down easier when we believe we had a fair shake.
And there will be other abuses, I am sure of it. This is what the kind of person who becomes a lobbyist does. But we will set a precedent for acting on these abuses, for closing loopholes and restoring good faith governance. Will it go perfectly? No. But I don't ever look for perfection, I look for improvement.
Your mention of coypright law is interesting and I can actually think of a patent situation that warrants attention. I think lobbyists would be able to articulate their firms' positions on these issues. It's not like a trade law professor at some school will have a more thoughtful opinion on these matters than the actual parties involved.
Then there's the healthcare problem. When government gets involved in the private sector (counter productively I might add), how are private companies supposed to respond?
And of course, everyone knows about Bank of America and the five dollar fees, the result of a ridiculous and intrusive article of legislation. I wouldn't want to pay the surcharge either but it was a reaction to legislation, and it emphasizes why corporations need a voice in Washington DC.
And you can have it, the same way we have it. Write a letter. I don't have a problem with that.
The problem is you insist on including a check with it. That's what made this movement.
I concur and believe I was attempting to express the same idea, but perhaps using different language.
The question we have to ask is: what does "smarter regulation" mean? When I say less regulation, I mean that rather than having billions of tiny laws that regulate every aspect of life, we should have certain fundamental regulations that protect people through undeniable logic. For example, a person's right to life is what protects us from murderers. You don't regulate knife stabbings, gun shootings, hangings, hitting someone with a car, etc. all as separate issues. The underlying issue is the violation of a person's right to life. I feel like we've gotten away from dealing with the underlying issues, which creates a lot more debate on the inconsequential details, and makes it difficult for Republicans and Democrats to work together. On top of that, we probably shouldn't have a two party system to begin with, for that very reason.
consultants can do the job
We may need lobbyists, but given the history of abuses associated with rampant corporate lobbying we also need all lobbying to be done in plain view of the people. While it may be true that a lobbyist will know more about the situation he's bringing before Congress than the politicians he's addressing, ten to one he's also trying to coerce and/or outright buy the politician's support. I think we can all agree that this has to stop.
If you forbid lobbyists from having any private or "off the record" contacts with politicians and force all of them to make their arguments in a public forum based on the merits of the issue at hand then lobbyists become a valuable part of the political system. However, if they are allowed to continue behaving as they have done then they are nothing but corporate enforcers.
It's true which is why I want more openness as in a public record log of what interests spend how much time with which legislators.
I think you are a paid lobbyist for the Lobbyist Association of America. Sorry, OWS doesn't allow lobbying here. Get lost !
That's a mighty easy way to ignore my arguments, which are great arguments.
I think most "members" of OWS are anarchists who want to throw out everything, not because it would make America a better place, but rather because it didn't help you. As if.
And by the way, I think everyone should read HOUSE AND SENATE by Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. He worked as a staffer for two Democrats on Congress for like 15 years. He extensively talks about how Congress would be unable to function without input from lobbyists.
When you're a representative, you don't have time to tooth and nail investigate all of these votes. There's issues and votes that are your projects, things you don't care about, even things you want to care about but you can't possibly research because IT'S CONGRESS, you don't have the time.
The fact that lobbyists are paid by " corporate interests " is irrelevant because if they ever lied to a member of Congress, the Representative would close the door, and the lobbyist would lose their access - and their job.
But just as anyone on this website has the right to lobby the government, so too do American companies, who honestly have much more at stake than the average 20-something college student.
Fine, just don't donate money to lobby a representative of that government, because then it's bribery. Get it? I don't care if "that's the way it's been done" for the last 10,000 years. It's BRIBERY.